Chapter XII

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

It was a long journey home from Wave, taking about twelve days from start to finish. The team of five could see the gates of Konoha long before they reached them, even through the trees. Naruto, for one, was glad to be home, even if he would be back to being treated like a demon. There were, as he saw it, compensations. Lovely, lavender-eyed compensations…

Team seven had just barely set foot on the other side of the great wall when there was a kind of shriek and a dark-haired something threw itself on Naruto. The boy was slightly taken aback but pleased all the same as he wrapped his arms around Hinata's shoulders. She was shivering and sobbing, her face pressed into his shoulder. The blonde boy realized that she was whispering something.

"You s-said it would only b-be a m-month, but I had to l-live without y-you f-for nearly t-twice that! I was so s-scared. I've never b-been so s-scared! I thought you were d-dead! I thought you were g-gone and that I had never r-really-" The girl broke off. She had finally been alerted to the fact that she was not alone with her beloved. Very slowly, she raised her wet face from Naruto's shoulder, and looked Sakura dead in the eye. Very quietly and unobtrusively, the Hyuuga fainted.

Naruto, who had been ready in case something like this was going to happen, caught her up before she fell. He held her bridal-style, with one arm under her knees and the other supporting her shoulders. Like that, he simply stood for a minute, savoring the feeling of having a warm body full of passion and feelings to hold in his arms. His teammates were respectfully silent on his right.

Hinata awoke very slowly, believing herself to be still dreaming. It was one of those wonderful dreams were she was cuddling with Naruto… She curled herself a little in Naruto's arms, nuzzling her head against his chest as a tiny smile lit her face. The dream ended abruptly when she heard hastily stifled laughter. Her eyes shot open and she discovered that she really was in Naruto's arms. Her eyes slid sideways and she caught sight of Sakura, Sasuke, and Oscar once more. She flushed red and her temperature dropped drastically, in danger of fainting again.

Naruto could not fail to notice, so he gave his team a pleading look. Some Privacy? Please? Oscar gave a little nod and a wink, but Sasuke and Sakura pretended not to understand the blonde and went on staring with identical evil grins. Naruto saw this and gave Oscar another look. This one said Get them out of here!

Oscar sidled up to Sasuke, who barely took any notice until, "Yoink!" Oscar pulled something from the depths of Sasuke's pack and held it in front of Sakura's eyes, gaining her immediate attention. "Come and get it."

Sasuke looked at the thing, momentarily confused. "Those look like my- Hey! Give them back!" Oscar, holding the boxer shorts aloft, raced away, pursed be an irate Uchiha and a drooling Sakura.

Once they had gone, Hinata's tense shoulders relaxed by just the smallest amount, but not as much as Naruto would have hoped. He considered not putting her down and carrying her back to his apartment. He decided against it, however, and instead gently set her on her feet. "Come with me. I need to go ditch my pack before I can do anything else. Come and walk with me Hinata-chan. There's a lot to tell you."

"O-okay, N-naruto-kun." She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat, much as she longed to reach out and take hold of his hand, and they set off walking side-by-side.

Naruto had not quite finished his story by the time they had reached his apartment, so after he dumped his gear and changed his clothes, they wandered off, still talking. Well, Naruto talked- Hinata mostly listened. Unconsciously, their feet carried them toward Jaitan-sensei's preferred training ground. When they arrived, they found Oscar, gingerly prodding the bloody lip he had gotten from his choice of distraction. He went over to join them. "I guess you didn't get away clean," Naruto remarked.

"No I did not. It was worth it, though! The look on Sasuke's face…"

"So, what, only I'm not allowed to antagonize him?" Hinata swallowed a grin at Naruto's tone of voice.

"I wasn't just antagonizing him! I was also trying to get him used to being treated like a normal person!"

"Did it work?"

"Not as well as you'd expect…" He cut himself off, staring towards the small pond at the other end of the training ground. He raised a hand and pointed and Hinata and Naruto followed his gaze. On the surface of the lake were two people, engaged in what looked like very uncoordinated gymnastics. The three genin went over to have a look. As they got closer, Naruto, who had the best eyesight, was the first to realize that the two people were actually Jaitan-sensei. Both of him were attempting to do handstands while still floating on the surface of the pond. He was not making great headway. The edges of his sleeves and the unbound tips of his bangs were wet, as were his sandals and faces. He was grinning, however, as if he enjoyed the challenge.

"H-hello sensei," Hinata stammered. Both of Jaitan flipped the right way up and approached, stepping off of the surface of the pond and onto the grass.

Both Jaitans dried their faces on their sleeves before smiling at the genin. The one on the right said, "Hello Hinata-chan." The one on the left continued, speaking mostly to the boys. "I must speak to your team about catching up to the rest of the teams training-wise. I taught them tree climbing and a couple more chakra control exercises, in addition to more sparring. You need to catch up, though I suppose you'll want to take at least today off from training, if not tomorrow as well."

"We did tree climbing."

Jaitan on the right blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Kakashi taught us tree climbing while we were in Wave," Naruto explained.

"And are you all proficient?"

"Yeah, actually."

"I'll have to have you prove it to me, but in that case, you should be caught up relatively quickly," the Jaitans looked pleased. He had not looked forward to diverting from his schedule.

"Prove it?" Oscar looked distinctly unsettled. "As in, you'll make us climb a tree?"

"Well, yes. Is something-?"

"We'll explain later," Naruto said, hastily. Hinata tried not to laugh. Naruto had told her about that little incident in his recount of the mission.

"In that case, if you have nothing else to inform me of, I will resume my own training." Jaitan on the right gave a polite smile, and the three knew that they were dismissed.

Hinata hung out with the two boys for the rest of the day, even when Oscar said things in front of the civilians which made her want to bury her face in her coat and never resurface. She only went back to her clan compound when a Branch house member sought her out and insisted. Naruto wanted to insisted on taking Hinata home himself, but he did not want to stir up trouble with the influential clan, so he simply gave the girl's hand a light squeeze and said goodbye.

Naruto and Oscar headed toward the apartment building, taking their time and not paying any particular attention to their surroundings. Naruto later cursed himself for his carelessness, knowing that he should have had his guard up. In any case, neither of the boys was prepared when they rounded a corner right into the path of a raging mob. The angry villagers were upon Naruto in an instant, shouting their rage that the demon had dared to return to the village!

Oscar was horrified. His friend had told him about these times, but he had never actually witnessed an attack. He felt helpless and angry. The two feelings together drove him to do something that was probably incredibly stupid, but didn't seem that way at the time. He dove in and dragged Naruto backward, placing himself between the villagers and his friend. "What the hell! Didn't you even think? Naruto is not a demon! The demon may be sealed inside him, but it cannot influence his actions unless he is injured or emotional! Don't you think attacking him would make it more likely for the Kyuubi to escape?" A very small pause met these words, as no one had ever tried to talk sense to an angry mob. The dark boy made a reasonable point. However, many of those attacking had lost family members to the Kyuubi, and who was this foreigner anyway, to tell them that they were wrong?

"Lies!" The civilians stiffened as one at the back of the crowd yelled. "He's in league with the demon! Kill them both!" These words met with approval. Yes! Kill the demon and his friend, and all who would have the demon live! The people swept forward and Naruto scrabbled back, eyes trying to pick his friend's figure out from the wave of people that had engulfed him. He could barely see Oscar, and for one heart-stopping minute, he was afraid that he really had died. He stood by helplessly, before shaking himself and plunging forward, grabbing the back of his friend's shirt and hauling him out. To his horror, he was unconscious and was bleeding from the head, blood trickling through his dark hair. Naruto scooped him up and ran, keeping to the rooftops for speed and arrived at the hospital only minutes later, though to his shocked and panicked mind, it seemed to take hours. He was inside in an instant, screaming an explanation. Oscar could not die! He should not have stepped in front of the mob. Naruto was the one who could heal quickly, not his friend. He should have prevented it. He should have been ready for the attack!

Naruto sat out in the hallway, head on his knees. Every time someone passed, his head went up, eyes searching their face for information. However, when a medic finally came out to tell him that he could enter, he went slowly, unsure of what to expect.

It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. "What's wrong? Is he okay?" Naruto asked.

"He's fine. The bleeding from the head was all superficial, as were most of the rest of his injuries: bruises and cuts and the like. Head wounds always bleed a lot. The most serious injuries were a badly sprained wrist, several bruised ribs, and a hairline fracture along two of his ribs. We cleaned up most of the blood and healed the fractures and the serious bruises. He'll be fine once he wakes up. The worst part will probably be the trauma. It could have been so much worse."

"Thank you," Naruto said gloomily. "I'll wait here."

"You should be in bed, too," the medic said, seriously.

"No, I'm okay. I just want to wait." Naruto sat down in the chair by the bed, making it plain that he was not about to lie down.

"Well, I suppose if you're sure… Just call if he wakes up, alright?" Naruto nodded. As soon as the medic left, he slumped down in his chair, not looking at his friend. He felt guilty and wretched, even if his friend would not suffer lasting damage. He could have pulled him out just a little faster… Every time he closed his eyes he saw the wave of villagers, angry but cruelly satisfied to have a new target. They swept forward…

Naruto was not aware of falling asleep, but he was woken be a horrible strangled yell, and sat up quickly, to see Oscar thrashing around, eyes pressed tightly shut and plainly terrified. Naruto stood up, his chair falling backwards. What to do? He ran to the door and caught hold of a medic in the hallway who was making his rounds. "Please!" he said, "I don't know what-" he stopped talking and simply dragged the unresisting man after him. Oscar was still in convulsions. The medic took immediate action, ordering Naruto to hold down Oscar's shoulders while he administered the medication. Naruto did his best, surprised at how hard the dark boy was fighting for his freedom. Suddenly, he went still, and the medic stepped back, stowing the empty syringe in a pocket.

"I gave him a tranquilizer, so he should be alert enough to talk to us but docile enough not to fight."

Naruto wasn't really listening, just staring at the dark boy who had sat up and had his hands over his eyes. His breath was raged and there was a hitch in it, as if he were struggling against tears. Naruto picked up the chair that had fallen and sank into it, suddenly very tired. "Are you okay?" he asked.

There was a slight pause. "No," Oscar moaned, still covering his eyes. He began to rock back and forth very slowly. "Can I leave now?" his voice was shaking.

"I don't think you should," Naruto looked around for the medic, but the man had left to continue his rounds. "What's going on?" Naruto asked quietly, hoping to calm down his friend.

"I want to l-leave,"

"You can't leave yet. You have to stay here tonight."

"I'm in a hospital, aren't I?"

"Yes."

"I can't stay here. I need to l-leave."

"Why?"

"It's a bit too close here, but you need to know." He stopped trying to master himself, and went on, "I don't react well to hospitals. It hasn't always been that way, but over the last or or so, it's gotten so I can bare set foot inside," he took his hands from his eyes, which were red but relatively clear. "That's why I have to leave. I'll sleep if you want me to, even though I'm not tired, but I can't do it here."

It didn't quite make sense to Naruto's tired mind, but since Oscar had calmed down and the medic had said the he was going to be all right, he gave in. "Alight, but we may have to go through the window. Good thing this is the first floor."

"Yeah, whatever. I just need to go…"

Naruto barely remembered the trip back to the apartment, and remembered even less getting into bed, but he must have, for that was where he was in the morning when he was woken by Sakura's voice outside of the door. He swore under his breath, having completely forgotten that he had training that day. He got out of bed and pulled open the door, face-to-face with his pink-haired teammate. She shot him an accusing look. "Jaitan-sensei is very unhappy. He sent me to get you two. What do you think you're doing? You had all of yesterday to sleep! Get dressed and I'll get Oscar."

Naruto, remembering the events of last night, moved to stop her as she made to knock on Oscar's door. "Don't," he said. "Let him sleep. I'll explain to Jaitan-sensei. Can you just write a note to Oscar telling him where we've gone?"

Sakura was highly affronted. "You write a note if you want one!"

Naruto almost growled at her. How had he ever liked this bitchy little- "I would, except I need to get dressed, and, anyway, writing was never my forte." He ducked inside his room and then came out and handed her a pen and piece of paper. Then he prudently shut the door in her face and began to get dressed.

When he and Sakura reached the training field, all of the genin stopped what they were doing to stare. Sakura turned her back on Naruto and set off to find a space to practice as close to Sasuke as she could get. Naruto, however, had already set off toward his sensei, who did indeed look rather dour and sarcastic at the blonde boy's lateness. As Naruto passed Hinata, he took hold of her hand. She got the message and fell into step beside him. Naruto pulled Jaitan-sensei and Hinata away from the other genin, and explained the events of last night to them. The Jaitans exchanged looks and Hinata squeezed his hand in sympathy. Distractedly, Naruto remembered that Hinata did not yet know why the villagers had attacked him, and so he omitted the actual words that Oscar had said to the mob. Jaitan must have known, however, as all four of his eyes flashed. Both of his faces were thoughtful, however, when Naruto described his conversation with Oscar at the hospital. After that Jaitan didn't seem in the least annoyed at Naruto's lateness, and readily agreed not to divulge Oscar's fear without the dark boy's consent. He set Naruto with some relatively easy chakra exercises, which Naruto was grateful for. He didn't feel up to anything challenging. He did wonder about something he had heard Jaitan mutter while he had been telling the story, though.

"The Hokage will not be pleased, when word reaches his ears. The attack on a foreign shinobi is a matter of international relations.

A/N: Huh. This one didn't take long to write. If anyone one is still confused about Jaitan, do what you ought to have done some time ago and check out his bio on my author page. (note: there are a few spoilers in there) More NaruHinaness to come.

About Oscar's phobia: It will most likely be explained either in the next chapter or in the one after that, and I owe the idea for Oscar's backstory to the author Steveshakespere (thanks!) and it has to do with Oscar's phobia.

Yeah, I'm not going to stick the chunin exam right after the Journey to Wave, so that won't happen for a long while. I need to get through a few things, first.

For now, though, read, review, worship the log even though I couldn't fit it in this chapter, and, i dunno...maybe review again... Peace!